Of Harmony and Wisdom
by 95Headhunter
Summary: Fleeing another Covenant attack, a handful of human soldiers make it to a peaceful colony they believe out of the Covenant's reach. But when the aliens catch them sooner than they feared, the weary soldiers face a last stand unlike anything they imagined.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Well, this is my first foray into Halo fic writing. Certainly not my first idea for a story, or even my first plan for one, but it's the first one I've been able going through a first chapter and beyond. I've been holding off in the past because of how crowded the Halo section is, and how quickly this story will be buried given my usual slow update pace, but I think I've had enough people read my other works to have at least a small audience. If you have stumbled across this fic, please take the time to write a quick review. Even if it's just a quick 'love it' or 'hate it', any and all feedback is so helpful, and sometimes just knowing someone's read is enough. **

**I'm putting it up now despite it being woefully incomplete even in rough planning, but I wanted to get it 'inb4 Reach' ****. **

**Rated T for mild language that may push to the edge of the T boundaries in future updates. T should also cover descriptions of violence prevalent from the start.**

**OF HARMONY AND WISDOM**

**Chapter One**

**New Milan, Minerva, Theta Eridani System**

**28/08/2547**

**14:54pm**

"Hornets!" Lance Corporal Jonas Dance all but spat into his helmet. "I did not sign up for this shit." Perched on a narrow jump seat on the opposite side of the small aircraft, Corporal Greg Baker shook his head.

"Do you ever quit bitching, Dancer?" He chuckled. "I mean if the hot dogs at lunch weren't bad enough, now our insertion method's got you down? And firing off the clichés to boot?"

"Damn right. Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to put seats on these things anyway? I've seen birds bigger than this thing!"

"And here I was thinking the ODST rep was actually deserved," the pilot of the Hornet laughed from the cockpit, "and yet you guys are scared of a little air under your feet. I'd have thought deathtrap space drops would make a little Hornet ride as easy as taking a leak."

"The drop pods don't have whacking great jets inches from your head, and you're attached to them by something a little more substantial than a freaking bungee cord." Dance countered. "That and you're not totally exposed to enemy fire. I mean one lucky Jackal spots you, and you're dead."

"You know you're a lucky man, Dancer." Baker said, smiling under his helmet, "five hundred years ago, back before helmet radios, the noise of this thing would have made it impossible for you to spend the entire trip whining. Modern technology, eh? Beautiful thing."

"Five hundred years ago they didn't strap good soldiers to the sides of tin can undersized aircraft and drop them into hotzones with nothing more than an overly thick sweater for protection from blue beams of fire!"

"Remind me to teach you what a helicopter is when we get back to base."

"_If_ we get back to base." Dance said sullenly.

"We're two minutes out," the voice of First Sergeant Ted Grumman, squad leader, came through on the squad's private channel, "cut the chatter and get set."

With one hand gripped firmly on the small handrail that jutted from the side of the Hornet, Dance hefted his assault rifle with the other. A quick glance to his right brought the still distant target into view. The government buildings that encircled the Eastern Plaza had once been an impressive, almost majestic sight. Though they had not reached the heights of some of the corporate towers that still dominated the skyline, despite the damage inflicted upon them, there had been an artistry in their design unmatched in any of the surrounding cityscape. As the regional administration centre for a dozen local systems, New Milan's 'Ebony Towers', as they were known, had been built as a mark of respect for the authority that governed so comparably large a territory. Hewn from local black rock, the façade that had adorned the rooftops with intricate carvings and reliefs had been all but obliterated by a combination of bombing runs, defensive action and failed sabotage. The Central Administration Directorate building had been stripped to half its former height, the skeletal remains of its fortified information centres protruding stoically from the remnants of offices and reception lounges that littered the plaza.

At the southern end, the Civilian Parliament building stood firm, retaining a sense of pride despite the gaping hole that had cut deep through its structure, a trio of tattered flags still flying lazily in the breeze, a reminder that humanity had not yet been driven from this world.

The Orator Hotel remained the most intact, spared the worst of the bombardment, but it now bristled with alien fortifications, the once elaborate roof carvings replaced with a maze of sniper nests, spotter towers and anti-aircraft guns. Shimmering blue energy fields patched up the wounds that dotted the outer walls, while infantry patrolled the halls that had once played host to visiting diplomats and local politicians when work took their weekends.

The Eastern Plaza contained by far the greatest concentration of Covenant soldiers, the enemy that had wrought so much destruction on this world, and so much more on the others that had burned before this one. Their numbers, though, were so great that the rest of the city was nonetheless filled with them, methodically fortifying it from human counter attack whilst systematically butchering any hidden civilians who had been unable to reach an evacuation ship. There was something here the Covenant wanted. That they had not simply annihilated the planet's surface from orbit with ship-mounted plasma weaponry was evidence enough of that.

To the military forces stationed on the planet, it was eminently clear what had to be done. Dance and the other members of his Orbital Drop Shock Trooper team were the final stage of the plan that had resulted – they would find out what the Covenant were after, and they would stop them. To the men perched on the sides of the tiny support aircraft, nothing could be simpler than that.

Turning his head back left, Dance saw one of the Pelican dropships that had been flying close behind kill its forward momentum with a swift tilt of its jets, and then slowly begin its vertical descent to the streets below. It was just one of eight doing likewise around the Eastern Plaza, deploying teams of UNSC Marines directly into the city. It was as Dance turned back to his objective that all hell broke loose.

The five Hornets banked hard as they turned into the Plaza, almost directly over the hotel. Green bolts of light sizzled past Dance's Hornet and he instinctively ducked his head.

"Jackals," the pilot reported, "they've opened fire."

"Weapons free," Lieutenant Dillon Montgomery said over the general channel, "smoke the bastards!"

Dance readied his assault rifle, aware as he did so that he would be lucky to hit anything firing one handed from a moving jet. Before he could squeeze the trigger, the Hornet pivoted sharply and unleashed a cacophony of noise as it let rip with the twin rotary cannons mounted above the canopy. Joined with simultaneous fire from the other four aircraft, the fire raked across the roof of the hotel, punctuated by a series of faint clouds of purple mist that marked a kill. A stream of missiles from the wing mounted launchers followed the spray of bullets, making a mess of the fortifications and any alien unlucky enough to have been caught in the blast.

The Hornets had no time to dawdle, however, not with the lower floors still crawling with Covenant. They moved off as fast as their twin engines were able to propel them, and Dance tensed himself as they neared the ravaged rooftop of the CAD building. The Hornets set down gently on what had once been the floor of an office level, and Dance leapt off the jump seat, his left hand detaching the bungee cord as he did so. Dance immediately dropped into a crouched stance, his left hand coming back to support the barrel of his assault rifle, and he swept the weapon across his field of vision watching for any sign of movement that could indicate a hostile.

"Fireteams Alpha and Bravo, form up!" Lieutenant Montgomery barked into his headset. Dance darted forward, moving towards a fellow black armoured ODST with a red stripe adorning his shoulder. Behind him, Corporal Baker moved off towards another ODST. In a scant few seconds, the nine ODSTs were formed up in two assault teams. For the insertion, each team had been split so that its members were on separate Hornets, despite the VTOL aircraft's ability to accommodate four soldiers on its jumps seats, as a precaution in case one of them had been shot down.

"Alpha team, get set to breach that door!" Montgomery ordered, "quick and quiet." Sergeant Grumman, known to his squad as 'Comet', moved off silently towards a door marked as a stairwell. Wordlessly, the three ODSTs under his direct command positioned themselves around the door. Comet's assault rifle was slung across his back, and instead he held a bulky, long barrelled pistol in his hands. The M6C/SOCOM was sound suppressed to the point where it was as quiet as it was possible for a firearm to be, and equipped with a smart linked tactical scope and explosive ammunition to ensure it was a deadly as possible. All this was reflected in the weapon's cost, and its subsequent rarity among the ranks of the UNSC Marine Corps. Flanking the door was Greg 'Donner' Baker, a similarly suppressed M7 submachine gun clutched tightly in his hands and a shotgun strapped to his back. Covering the door from an angle with the imposing bulk of an M290 machine gun, the only non-silenced weapon currently trained on the doorway, was Lance Corporal Freddie Ruiz.

With a quick hand signal from Comet, Lance Corporal Danny Kim blew a pair of small charges affixed to the door's hinges. With less noise than a popping balloon, the door cracked and shifted in its frame. Gripping the handle, Kim pulled sharply and the door fell outwards, exposing the soot blackened stairwell within. Baker immediately stepped across, his submachine gun sweeping across the aperture as he stepped through.

"Clear." He whispered into his helmet microphone. Comet nodded at Ruiz and followed Baker inside, his pistol raised and tracking along his line of sight.

"Blitzen, move it up." Comet ordered, indicating Ruiz. Immediately the gunner moved forward, and took up a crouched position at the top of the stairwell. "Bravo team, get behind us. Cupid, you watch the rear."

"Yes, sir." Kim replied, picking up his submachine gun and scanning the rooftop. "I'll watch the hell out of the rear." He muttered to himself as Staff Sergeant Julie Callaghan lead her sub-squad through the breached doorway, his eyes briefly lingering on the soldier whose gender had landed her the 'Vixen' moniker. He received a light punch on the shoulder as Corporal Alain Leclerc passed him, the grin on his face visible behind his depolarised visor.

"I heard that." The sniper's face once again disappeared behind a darkened faceplate as he moved off. Last to move inside was the Lieutenant, the silver stripe on his shoulder glinting softly in the sunlight as he crossed the broken roof.

"So far so good, people," Montgomery said softly as the squad made their way down the cramped staircase, "let's keep it cool, and let's keep it together. Remember, once we get to the atrium I'll take Alpha left, Callaghan will take Bravo right."

The troopers descended the stairs as rapidly as they were able, sweeping every corner and doorway with their weapons as they went.

"Third floor, this is it." Montgomery commented as they reached their target floor. Without uttering another word, the troopers formed back into their respective squads on either side of the elegant wooden double doorway. Kim reached into a belt pouch and withdrew another set of small explosives, enough for each door. Affixing it to the frame was the work of seconds; he could practically feel the rest of the squad tense as he worked.

"Hit it, Cupid." Grumman ordered, and Kim blew the explosives, this time set for a little more force. The wooden doors blew inwards and the troopers piled through. For this second breach, things were not as easy. Baker and Dance were the first two through, Baker breaking to the left as Dance stepped to the right. Both were immediately confronted with an open rectangular mezzanine, the floor they were on was merely one of several landings that encircled the outer edge of the space, while the centre was open, reaching down to the ground level below. This landing was also occupied. Squatting no more than three metres away from Dance was the ungainly figure of one of the aliens that comprised the collective Covenant. Defined by its short stature, overdeveloped, lanky forearms, stubby legs and the large, triangular methane tank affixed to its back, Dance instantly recognised the creature as what humans termed a Grunt. They were used as frontline infantry, labourers and general cannon fodder by the Covenant. They were generally cowardly, and possessed of far less tactical ability than the average human, but they were nonetheless armed with deadly plasma weapons and blessed with incredible numbers.

Dance wasted no time; the Grunt was facing the other way and had yet to spot the intruders. He raised his submachine gun, aimed down its sight and squeezed the trigger. Half a dozen hushed rounds collided with the Grunt's head, cracking on impact and spattering a small area of the floor behind him with blue, alien blood. The Grunt keeled over, not uttering a sound. Beside Dance, Baker was similarly dispatching a pair of Grunts who appeared to have been in conversation. The two troopers ran forward, and the rest of their respective squads followed swiftly behind them, moving off in opposite directions along the landing. Dance abruptly dropped to a crouch and raised his M7 again, peering down its smartscope and using it to zoom in on another pair of Grunts shuffling along further down the landing. In almost perfect concert with Callaghan, he fired off a few more rounds at the point where his targeting crosshair met the leftmost Grunt's head. Both aliens died within fractions of a second of each other, blue blood seeping into the thick red carpet even before the bodies hit the floor.

From the other side of the landing, Dance heard an all too familiar roar. Alpha team had apparently been spotted, but not by one of the Grunts. The alien war cry possessed a strange resonance to it that could only have been produced by the four mandibles that formed the mouth of an alien known as many things to the humans. Split-lip, Squid-face and Crunchbite were just some of the terms that had come to describe the towering reptilian aliens – and more specifically their distinctive facial features – officially labelled 'Elites' by Naval Intelligence. Though lacking the numbers of their diminutive subordinates, the Elites were fearsome soldiers. Decked out from eight foot high head to broad, hoof-like toes in armour far stronger than anything possessed by the regular human infantry, they were further augmented by a powerful energy shield that absorbed the kinetic energy of bullets, the heat and force of explosions and even a limited amount of their own plasma fire so long as it retained power. Combined with their raw strength, cunning tactical minds and honour driven warrior's pride, the Elites were largely responsible for the series of defeats inflicted on humanity that had ultimately amounted to wholesale slaughter.

But they were not unstoppable. Dance watched from across the landing as Baker, Kim and Montgomery dropped to a crouch and sprayed the Elite with a hail of suppressed gunfire, even as the alien raised the sizeable bulk of his plasma rifle. The Elite's shields flared with light as the bullets struck, and the alien howled as the withering spray forced him back. Beside him, the squad of Grunts apparently under his command panicked and died as Grumman picked them off one by one with his pistol, the speed of his aim such that they were unable even to return a shot. Their commanding Elite's shields gave out under the sustained fire, and the bullets began to tear through his armour, spattering purple blood from exit wounds as the alien gave a final howl of pain and slumped to the floor. The three ODSTs then ducked into a doorway to their left and reloaded, while Ruiz covered them with his machine gun.

"Heads up Dancer, we've got a pair of big bastards ourselves up ahead." Callaghan barked, snapping Dance's gaze back along his side of the landing. Sure enough, two more Elites were striding out of a side room in front of him, and this time they had not been caught off guard. One of them was clad in a similar blue armour to the alien Alpha had just eliminated, but the other wore an imposing crimson armour that denoted, apparently, a more senior rank that approximated sergeant; and Dance had been lead to believe that 'merit' in the Elite's military was another word for body count.

"Shit," he breathed, "that's just not fair."

"Sarge, permission to go loud?" Leclerc asked through the helmet mike. It took Callaghan less than a second to reach a decision, but the sheer rate of thoughts rushing through her mind made that half a second seem like an hour, and Vixen inwardly cursed herself for being slow.

"Take 'em down Dasher," she commanded, "Bravo, covering fire!" Leclerc ducked into a doorway and yanked the heavy sniper rifle off his back, temporarily discarding his silenced pistol on the floor. In the few seconds it took for him to disengage the safety, raise the oversized rifle into a firing position and clock the blue armoured Elite on the computer aided scope, Callaghan and Dance opened fire on the two aliens, forcing them back into cover. Leclerc deftly brought the narrow crosshair right in line with the blue armoured Elite's head and squeezed the trigger. Initially designed for a police anti-vehicle role, the SRS99C-S2 AM rifle was a beast of a weapon, its immensely powerful ammunition easily capable of ripping through lightly armoured vehicles with unmatched precision, and even the combined strength of an Elite's shield and armour was not enough to sufficiently slow the round; it was for this reason the UNSC had adopted as their primary marksman weapon after encountering the Covenant. The round tore through the Elite's helmet, ripped through its skull and the contents within and ejected the other side, taking with it a sizable quantity of purple blood and alien grey matter, before finally embedding itself deep in the thick wall beyond.

The rifle's booming report echoed through the atrium, and the thin wispy trail of smoke the round left behind it lingered just long enough to give Leclerc's position away visually, but all that was irrelevant. Any pretence of maintaining a stealthy approach had been lost when the first Elite let out a warning roar. Leclerc had chosen his target carefully. Years of experience behind the scope of his rifle had told him that the red armoured Major Elites had sufficiently strong shields that a hit to the more heavily armoured areas could sometime result in a deflected round. Though the head armour was, for the most part, not heavy enough, Leclerc had seen his share of unfortunate snipers who had counted on being able to quickly drop a red Elite and been fatally surprised when the shot deflected off the rear quarter. Taking the blue Elite out first left the rest of his squad clear to pop out from cover and hose the remaining alien with bullets. So long as a few hit, the shield would be sufficiently weak enough that his shot would once again be effectively unstoppable.

It was Private First Class Isaac Gyan that stepped out first, his M7 chattering away in a throaty whisper. Almost immediately, Leclerc saw the distinctive light flares of rounds striking the shields, a dancing pattern of blue sparks and ripples over the Elite's body. For all their power and guile, the sheer size of the aliens meant that finding complete cover in a structure designed for human proportions was difficult, and a hit anywhere on the shields weakened the entire coverage. And Leclerc had become an expert at exploiting this. Squatting behind a large planter, the Elite retracted the exposed leg that had been lit up by Gyan's submachine gun fire, raising the top of his elongated head just above the lip as he did so. A fraction of a second was all Leclerc got, but it was all he needed. The integrated computer in his scope recognised the Elite's thermal outline, and the crosshair lit up red as the alien's head moved into alignment with it. Leclerc squeezed the trigger again, and a second trail of white smoke lanced out from his rifle's heavy barrel. The finned round clipped a leaf from one of the plants as it passed through, taking tiny bits of plant material with it as it pierced the alien's helmet and shattered its skull. A soft gargle was all the sound the Elite could make as it fell to the floor, joining his dead comrade.

"Move it up!" Montgomery shouted over the mic, "It's about to get busy!"

Dance sprung up from his crouched position and strode forward briskly, his submachine gun raised and scanning. He knelt briefly by the slumped forms of the two dead Elites, quietly slotting a round into the head of the blue armoured one as a little self-reassurance. He peeked his head around the corner and looked in to see a solitary Grunt quaking in the far corner. The alien squeaked at the sight of the black helmet and raised its plasma pistol. A quick burst from the submachine gun silenced any thoughts of bravado.

"Clear." Dance said quietly into his mic before moving on. Private Gyan moved up beside him, and the two soldiers took up positions either side of the large door at the end of the mezzanine opposite their ingress point. From over the railings behind them, Corporal Baker spotted the distinctive triangle formation of a squad of Grunts emerge out of a room on the lower floor. Operating in squads referred to by the Covenant as 'Lances', Baker knew that they would be commanded by a lone Elite. He let out a brief warning cry and, without wasting any time, opened fire. The first burst struck one of the Grunts square in the head, sending the others diving for the scant cover the hall below offered. Reacting quickly, Sergeant Grumman yanked his assault rifle from his back and joined in the suppressing fire, the noise of his unsuppressed fire drawing the attention of Freddie Ruiz, who proceeded to rest the barrel of his machine gun on the balcony railings, waiting for the opportune moment. That moment was not long in arriving. The commanding Elite recklessly stepped out of cover to start raking the relatively unprotected soldiers above with plasma, revealing himself as a relatively inexperienced blue armoured Minor. Ruiz squeezed the trigger, the roar of the support weapon filling the atrium. High velocity, high calibre rounds struck the Elite's complex shielding system, and it flared brightly as the force of the impacts drove him back. The shield was a powerful technology, but even it was insufficient to deal with the firepower the machine gun provided, and it only took a scant few seconds for a dozen rounds to tear through the shields and armour, and into the alien's flesh. It roared in pain and shock as it reared back and collapsed.

Panicking at the sight of their fallen commander, the Grunts sprang from cover and tried to retreat, only to be picked off by a few controlled bursts from Grumman's assault rifle. Seeing the threat neutralised, and noting that Bravo team had used the brief time to form up on the main door, Lieutenant Montgomery stepped up from his covering position and delivered a swift pat on the back to Ruiz.

"Good shooting, Blitzen." He nodded, and signalled to Alpha team. "Move it up Alpha, provide cover for Bravo. The Covenant have got to know we're here by now, expect this atrium to start filling up soon." The ODSTs of Fireteam Alpha acknowledged the order and moved alongside their counterparts in Bravo, about facing and casting watchful eyes on the atrium they had just crossed.

At a nod from Montgomery, Callaghan kicked in the door and Dance moved forward, his M7 immediately sweeping through the arc of the room beyond. Bravo Team piled into the anteroom. Pressing a button on his wrist mounted interface, Sergeant Ted Grumman pulled up a holographic projection on the inside of his helmet visor, a location marker appearing and confirming what memory had already suggested: their first objective was just beyond the door on the right. Changing tack, Grumman ordered his squad to stack up on the heavy wood door as they would have for a breach, except this time the door was simply opened slowly and silently by Corporal Baker, suppressed submachine gun at the ready; the locking mechanism had been auspiciously melted with a plasma weapon. With the door ajar, Baker tapped his helmet lightly, depressing a button that activated his helmet's integrated VISR mode, it's light amplification system bringing clarity to the gloom beyond while a sophisticated sensor package took in heat signatures, visual imagery and even performed an olfactory analysis of air composition. The armour's computer system processed all this data within seven hundredths of a second, comparing it with an internal database, and applied a holographic overlay on the inside of the helmet visor illuminating the flow of geometry, tagged the system it recognised as the mission objective and provided red highlights around the group of lifeforms it registered as hostile members of the Covenant.

"Drones," Baker whispered softly over his helmet mic, "they're all over the equipment. I count seven." In the darkened security room beyond, the winged, insectile aliens known to humans as Drones scoured over open servers and illuminated computer terminals, unaware of the conflict that had taken place only metres away, so consumed by their task that they had failed to notice the crack of light that now spanned the floor outward from the door.

"Prancer," Montgomery softly hailed Private Gyan, the closest thing to a tech expert on the team, "will smoke damage the equipment?"

"Assuming everything's still powered up, the vent systems should take care of it before it has a chance to do any damage. And it's really only a risk if the server casings are open." The ODST shrugged, consigning all responsibility back to the mission leader. Aware that time was wasting, Montgomery made a snap decision.

"Donner, pop smoke." He ordered Baker. The point man complied swiftly, removing a small cylinder from a pouch, flicking the pin and tossing it into the room beyond. The miniature charge at the top of the cylinder cracked audibly, and thick white smoke was soon billowing out of the small device. Almost instantly, screeches of distress pierced through the cloud. Without wasting a second, Baker threw the door open and slotted a single, suppressed round through the smoke and into the nearest Drone, his VISR's targeting hologram taking the place of normal vision.

With VISR mode similarly engaged, Baker was soon joined by fellow Alpha squadmates Grumman and Kim in firing precision rounds into the unshielded, unarmoured insects, their relatively frail bodies requiring significantly less firepower than the powerful Elites, allowing the ODSTs the opportunity to strike without damaging the equipment the aliens had been perched on only seconds ago. As Gyan had predicted, the Drones had been smart enough to leave the rooms ventilation systems on, and the cloud of smoke was dispersed almost as quickly as it had appeared.

"Alpha team, watch the door," Montgomery ordered, "Prancer, step it up." With the rest of Bravo team watching like overprotective parents, Private Gyan proceeded through the security room to the main console, quickly bringing up the feed from the security cameras dotted around the complex.

"All yours, LT." He said to Montgomery, before slipping a small interface unit out from his backpack and hooking it up to the central server. While Gyan worked, Montgomery had Dance cycle through the camera feeds, noting that several yielded only a grey and black mosaic of digital static.

"We've lost a few," Dance said glumly, "I guess that's to be expected, given the damage." Montgomery merely nodded at this, before letting out a low whistle as the display flicked to the feed from the records hall. Even in this age of digital information, humanity's vast bureaucracy had not quite let slip of physical records, and the vast storeroom at the back of the ground level had only weeks ago held reams of paper files and forms that had formed part of the colony's administrative backbone. Now, as the automated camera panned back and forth, Montgomery saw only tattered wreckage of cabinets and shelves on the fringes of the room, its remaining space occupied instead by what appeared to be a Covenant barracks. Scores of aliens, of multiple species had congregated there, some striding purposefully about while others reclined on makeshift beds or worked on Covenant work stations. Grunts slept on the floor, curled up in groups across the room, while packs of Jackals ate from bulky, purple ration boxes. Squat weapon crates were scattered about, almost outnumbering the alien populace.

"I'd say that was a room to avoid at all costs." Montgomery muttered.

"Oo-rah." Dance delivered the traditional marine acknowledgement with an unusual degree of incredulity. Though something of a wakeup call as to the opposition the team faced, it was at least rewarding to see the swiftness of their attack had worked, the bulk of Covenant forces were yet to be alerted to their presence. The trooper continued his search through images of abandoned government offices, with varying degrees of Covenant occupation before finally coming across the flickering feed of what appeared to be the Governor's Administrative Office. "Camera's damaged but still functioning," Dance noted, "letting it sweep..." He narrated. "There," he gestured as a figure strode across the flickering screen, "Elite, with decoration." Montgomery nodded as he two noticed the distinctive orange pauldrons and fins that protruded from the crimson armour.

"Guards." Montgomery confirmed. "I think we've found our target. Intel was good, we hit the right building. Take the systems offline." Dance nodded, and began deactivating the camera network, ensuring no hostile would come in behind them and pick them up on the feed. Meanwhile, Gyan finished his work on the servers.

"Only half wiped," he told Montgomery and Grumman, "any data related to Earth or other colonies has been wiped pretty successfully, but clearly the civvies here didn't think they had time for a full wipe before bugging out. There's a hell of a lot of data here, most of it just general colony admin, but who knows what Covie intel could pull from it given enough time."

"Can you erase it?" Grumman asked.

"To ensure it was permanent, I'd need some time. Don't think mission parameters allow it, sir."

"So we blow it?" Grumman asked Montgomery, who nodded an affirmative.

"Quick as you can, Cupid." The lieutenant ordered Lance Corporal Kim, who had been listening as he watched the room's entrance. "We need to move fast." Kim stood from his crouched position, while his defensive duty was taken up by Corporal Dance. Rigging the server columns with a small amount of plastic explosive, Kim worked as quickly as his experience allowed. Within a minute, he was set."

"Clear the room." He told the rest of the team coolly. Once the nine troopers had piled out, he closed the door and flicked the detonator. A muffled crump accompanied the controlled explosion, and Kim quickly opened the smouldering door to check his handiwork, helmet shielding him from the outpouring of smoke. Satisfied that the electronics were unsalvageable, he nodded to Montgomery and the squad proceeded.

"Objective's on the floor below, let's move."

The ODSTs moved as quickly and quietly as they had during their incursion, eliminating a squad of unsuspecting Grunts as they located a stairwell down. Whatever tactical plan the Covenant had devised, they seemed to have concentrated their defence of the building on its exterior and in choke point corridors, as the middle floor of the multi-storied mezzanine was devoid of the patrols they had encountered on the floor above. Apparently, local leadership had been relying on anti-aircraft emplacements scattered about the city to protect them from an attack from above. And clearly, they had not counted on the speed with which the ODSTs had been trained for. There had not even been any Covenant forces on the ground floor atrium to hear the firefight above and warn the others.

Advancing cautiously across the open space, Alpha team lead Bravo into an anteroom similar to the one above that had led to the security room. This one, however, was grander both in scale and decor. Semi-circular in shape, the plush maroon carpeted room had five equidistant doors around its circumference, darker and richer than the security room's, and a polished marble reception desk at the centre, chipped by debris that must have fallen during the strafing runs that had decapitated the proud building. The central doors, directly behind the artfully crafted desk, differed from the others both in their size – they were a set of double doors – and in presentation, with a bold relief stretching in an arch across the top bearing both the seal of Minerva and the United Earth Government colonial emblem.

Montgomery did not need the updated objective tracker projected onto his visor to know that this was the building's head office, the room from which the colony's governor had seen to his affairs when not engaged in parliament are out and about with the people. This was also where all available intelligence pointed to as the location of the mission critical asset. Taking a deep breath, Montgomery ordered the squad to get set. Once again, Dance was on point, Bravo team behind him and Alpha covering the rear.

Dance, who had stowed his suppressed pistol in favour of his assault rifle's firepower, swept his field of fire across the room, using his helmet's VISR mode to check the darker recesses of the corners to the left and right. Nothing.

"Clear," he muttered, "moving to the objective." He tensed himself. Whether the asset was beyond the double doors before him or not, they had confirmed there was at least one Elite Guardsman in there. Naval Intelligence had little on these seldom seen warriors, save that they were charged with protecting Covenant warriors and were correspondingly fearsome fighters. Dance had never seen one of the Covenant's feared energy swords in combat before, but he knew all too well of their lethal reputation, and knew that in all likelihood he was about to face one himself. "Do we risk a breach?" He asked, his clear tone not letting slip his inner hope that a breach charge would take care of the Guard before he and the squad had to go toe-to-toe with it.

"Negative," Montgomery replied, "we can't risk damage to the asset." Dance withheld a curse as he took another deep breath.

It was as Bravo team were stacking up beside the door that a fearsome, blood-curdling roar echoed through the anteroom. Whirling round, Dance was just able to take in the image of a massive fist connecting with his helmet before he was sent flying across the room in a daze. Through blurred vision and a cracked faceplate, he saw a huge figure raise a fearsome, bladed weapon and cast it down on Sergeant Grumman, cleaving the assault rifle held as desperate protection clean in two, impossibly passing through to lodge itself in the thick armour on the Sergeant's chest. Roaring, the beast yanked his weapon back out and swatted Grumman aside. With a howl of rage, he leapt clear of the hastily returned fire and cannoned into another trooper. A projectile launched from the massive weapon detonated inches above Ruiz's head, a cascade of debris from the ruined wall behind knocking the trooper to the floor. As his vision cleared, Dance yanked off his ruined helmet and scrambled for his assault rifle, just as the alien leapt again with terrifying rage in its dark eyes – straight towards the stunned trooper.

**232****nd**** Marine Regiment 'Alpha Base', New Milan Outskirts**

**12:17pm**

"Intel from drone overflies confirms the sat data, and narrows it down to five buildings. The Phantom touched down in the Eastern Plaza, and our target hasn't passed through the perimeter. He's in one of the government buildings." Colonel Frank Butler extended a hand, lightly grazing the iridescent hologram that hung above the table like a supernatural haze. A quick sequence of key commands from the junior officer at one end of the large metal table dissolved the image, refocusing on the cluster of buildings Colonel Butler had indicated, enlarging them so they filled much of the middle of the table.

"Unfortunately, we do not at this time know which. And those are large buildings." Butler cast a sympathetic gaze towards one of the men seated around the table, a soldier whose plain black t-shirt stood out from the olive greens that surrounded him. "To make matters worse, immediate areal insertion is impossible: the city's choked with AA." The hologram panned out to reveal an image that was all too familiar to everyone sat around the table; the towering, skeletal structure of a heavy anti-air emplacement squatted amid the rendered debris of what had once been a tower block, tagged a pulsating red to emphasise its hostility. "The Covenant have really dug in here during the time we've had to concede them, we're faced with two AA guns at the north and south sides of the city centre, and a mass of triple-A patrolling the streets under infantry guard. And with the Covenant fleet holding position above the city, orbital insertion is a no go as well." Once again, Butler's eyes flashed to the soldier in black, the man whose square features and set face would have seemed so similar to the others around him, were it not for that distinctive black attire.

"We do, however, have a plan to extract the target. First priority is, naturally, removing those AA towers." Butler's voice suddenly took on a tired, worn quality as his eyes swept across the assembled leaders of the 232nd Marine Regiment. His men were stretched thin, and they all knew it. Minerva was supposed to have been a safe haven, at least for long enough for them to get their breath back. Along with three other regiments of the 17th Marine Division and the naval battlegroup they were charged with defending, they had battled out a fighting retreat across four star systems, fleeing from the carnage the alien forces of the Covenant had wrought on the colony of New Harmony. They had arrived at Minerva almost a spent force, and six months of resupply and reconstruction had simply not been enough. As irresistible as an ocean tide, the Covenant had hammered their way through, and once again the 232nd had found themselves on the defensive.

This time, however, things were different. There had been no frantic evacuation while the Covenant poured fire on the planet from the sky, no unrelenting massacre as the aliens murdered any civilian who managed to escape the burning planet with brutal efficiency. The Covenant had landed, committed ground forces to a world fortified with capable human troops; soldiers who could provide a match for the aliens while their feet touched earth. The aliens wanted something from this world.

"Two days may have been long enough for the Covenant to secure the airspace above the city, but not enough for them to set up decent surface defence." Butler continued, his fingers tapping lightly on the frames of the sunglasses that protruded from a trouser pocket. "We're going to hit both towers simultaneously with a vehicle assault. Lieutenant Macleod," Butler nodded to a stern faced solider sat off to his left, "that's where your platoon comes in. Two squads for each tower."

"Sir." Macleod acknowledged.

"Once the towers are knocked out, Marine fireteams from Alpha Company under Captain Sandy will deploy via Pelican into the streets surrounding the Plaza. Their objective will be to neutralise remaining triple-A to open an air corridor and then keep reinforcements from getting to the Plaza before the insertion team can complete their mission. Ideally, we want the asset extracted by air, but we estimate Covenant Seraphs are only minutes away. If an air extraction proves unfeasible, Lieutenant Macleod will need to bring his vehicles in for a ground extraction, understood?"

Macleod nodded once, while Captain Sandy shot him a look of concern. He raised his hand.

"Sandy?" Butler asked.

"If the Covenant are able to lock out airspace, what happens to my marines?" Butler's expression softened somewhat.

"Then you're going to have to get your teams to pull back to a safe distance. On foot."

"Aye, sir." Sandy acknowledged glumly.

"Hopefully that shouldn't be an issue," Butler added in an attempt at reassurance, "the insertion team should be finished before the Seraphs have time to respond."

"Mission time frame?" One of the pilots asked.

"No more than fifteen minutes from arrival in New Milan's airspace to extraction of the asset. We estimate the nearest Seraph fighters are eighteen minutes from the city, allowing scramble time. If they're already operational... well it'll be a close run thing. As for lighter air response, unknown. Hornet and LAAV escort should be sufficient, not to mention additional small arms fire, to deal with any Banshees we may encounter."

The pilot nodded an acknowledgement, but shifted uncomfortably at the news nonetheless. Still, the UNSC forces assembled had grown accustomed to the Covenant consistently having the advantage, and the pilot was not unfamiliar with dangerous situations. "Are there any more questions?" Butler asked the assembled soldiers. With no response, he decided to wrap up the briefing. "Alright then, go and brief your teams and get yourselves prepared. I want boots hitting the ground at fifteen hundred."

With that, the assorted combat personnel stood from their seats and made their way to their respective bases of operation, to brief the frontline troops on their roles in the operation. Colonel Butler took the opportunity to approach the lone, black shirted soldier. "How do you feel about this, Lieutenant, are you ready?" The man in black gave a grim smile.

"This is what the brass pays us for, sir. My men will do what's asked of them. Helljumpers wouldn't be Helljumpers if we weren't afraid of a little thing like overwhelming odds." Butler nodded with a smile of his own.

"I may have to ask even more of you," Butler said apologetically, "I want your team escorting the asset out of there as soon as you have it secure, but depending on how the rest of the operation goes, I may need to reinsert you."

The lieutenant scratched his chin as he nodded a reply.

"If all else fails, you can count on us, sir."

"I'm glad to hear that, Lieutenant." Butler gave a genuine smile. "Tell your men they have my personal best wishes. And tell them that I'll do all I can to get them home for a while if they pull this off."

"I'm sure they'll be glad to hear that, sir. Though I can assure you they're not short on motivation as it is."

"I don't doubt it." Butler grinned as he clapped a hand on the lieutenant's shoulder in camaraderie. "Oh, one more thing," he said as the black shirted trooper made to head off, "good luck, Dillon."

"Thanks, sir. Covenant aren't going to know what hit them."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

**New Milan outskirts**

**14:42pm**

"Check those alleys and watch those rooftops," Lieutenant Macleod ordered in his distinctive Scottish burr across the radio, his hands lightly drumming a beat on the grenade launcher resting on his lap. Following his own orders, he glanced to right, out of his vehicle and into the darkened recesses of side streets and back alleys that lead off the main thoroughfare. "Second squad, status?" He queried into the radio.

"AA tower in sight, sir, two clicks out. No opposition so far, anticipating Jackal overwatch within half a k."

"Stay ready, keep ya heads on a swivel." Macleod flicked his helmet radio over to another channel. "Python Actual this is Viper Actual, estimated contact with target in three mikes. Begin takeoff."

"Python copies all, Viper Actual," a mild New Zealand accent came across the radio, "we're in the air. Good hunting."

The click as the radio transmission was cut was punctuated by a bolt of green light that materialised seemingly from nowhere to strike the engine cowl of the Warthog ground vehicle on point.

"Contact!" The Warthog's driver bellowed into his helmet mic, "Jackals on the roof tops." No sooner had he voiced the observation, The M41 Light Anti Aircraft Gun on the vehicle's rear roared to life, its triple rotary barrels spraying armour piercing rounds at the source of the hostile fire. Barely a second later, it was joined by the chatter of the vehicle's side seat passenger's assault rifle, the noise barely audible under the cacophony of the heavy machine gun.

"Keep moving forward!" Macleod ordered, his voice raised above the din. "Don't let 'em slow us down." As his second position Warthog rattled past the pair of Jackals doing their best to rain green fire down on the column of vehicles, the gunner stood behind Macleod added his considerable firepower to the din, while Macleod leaned to the right and aimed his grenade launcher. The Jackals ducked behind a stone balcony as bullets whizzed past them, ricocheting off the thick walls of the apartment block they had been using for high ground. A single, distinctive _thwump_ signalled Macleod's entrance into the fray, as he launched a looping grenade high into the air, crashing back down with practiced accuracy behind the unsuspecting Jackals, the resulting explosion was unashamedly rewarding.

"Tango down," Macleod informed the rest of the column, with no lack of satisfaction, "keep movin', target's in sight."

The lead Warthog sped round a final corner, followed shortly by Macleod's Warthog and the rest of the convoy behind him. Squatting in the middle of a deserted open square, the great mauve tower that they had previously only glimpsed over rooftops came into full view. Sitting imposingly on three, stable legs, the tower culminated in a massive, tapering cylinder that housed a giant plasma mortar. Combined with targeting systems that were unrivalled by anything the UNSC had encountered in the ground theatre, it was capable of lofting a giant package of lethal plasma with unparalleled precision directly into the path of even the blindingly fast _Longsword_-class space bomber with catastrophic results. Capable of tearing through the hull of even one of the UNSC's space faring frigates in numbers, the tower was made all the more capable by surrounding the main gun with an array of repeating plasma cannons on frictionless bearings that allowed it to bring down any human air asset, right down to the tiny, agile Hornet attack VTOL.

The tower represented an immediate and deadly threat to any aerial insertion attempted by the human forces, but for all its firepower it was utterly defenceless against a co-ordinated ground assault. To compensate for this, the Covenant had littered the square around the formidable weapon with ground based defence turrets; sat similarly on three squat legs, they looked like bizarre miniature versions of the behemoth they protected, triple pronged plasma cannons swivelling on anti-gravity mounts. Accentuated by patrolling Elites with plasma rifles and horrifying needler weapons, the square presented more than a stiff challenge for any infantry force.

But for all the Covenant's advanced weaponry and unmatched firepower, they remained susceptible to carefully executed strategies and intelligent tactics. Without even having to give the order verbally, Lieutenant Macleod watched as the five assault vehicles under his direct command split off from the column to their pre-designated attack positions, before the Covenant sentry even had time to give a warning yelp. While the point Warthog hurtled directly passed the left most sentry gun, machine gun pelting rounds into its exposed operator, Macleod's broke right, its main gun similarly engaged. Under return fire from a squad of infantry, Macleod braced his back against the seat and extended his legs, bringing him up into a half standing position with clear line of sight above the driver to his right. He brought up his grenade launcher and, compensating for the speed of the Warthog, expertly slotted a round directly into the middle of the alien troops. The explosion took care of the more vulnerable Grunts and sent their Elite commander scurrying for the nearest cover, damaged shields sparking wildly.

Unprepared for the sheer speed of the attack, the Covenant were unable to prevent the fourth Warthog in the column, equipped with a dangerous looking pair of missile pods in place of the traditional machinegun mount, from pelting through the middle of their formation and straight under the reach of the tower's split legs. Following closely behind it was the last vehicle in the column, and the third variant of the Warthog light infantry vehicle to be represented. Eschewing the weapon systems of the other vehicles, this model instead utilised the space behind the driver and passenger seats to house seats for additional infantry. Usually, this was a ground insertion tool, but the additional role required of the Warthogs for this operation had left the troop bay empty, save for a lone, highly important marine.

With guided rockets blazing out from the speeding vehicle, raining down fire on any static Covenant weapon, the five strong column was almost unopposed for the thirty seconds it took the co-ordinated assault to eliminate the entire Covenant presence in the square. A few more precision rounds from Macleod's grenade launcher took care of the scattered Jackal snipers whose rooftop vantage points had failed to provide them with adequate cover. The lone marine in the back of the tail end Warthog leapt from his seat as the dust settled, unable to keep a look of awe from his face. Carrying a heavy looking rucksack, he made his way as quickly as he could to the closest of the three giant legs keeping the anti-air gun upright. Taking a measure of explosives from the rucksack; the marine set to work. As he did so, Macleod took the opportunity to step down from his seat and survey the area. Following a set of cables away from one of the gun's legs, he came across what looked like an armoured hut, in the typical Covenant purple. Peeking inside, he saw a complicated mess of mechanical and holographic interfaces – controls, evidently, for the massive gun above. Pulling a fragmentation grenade from a pouch, he pulled the pin and casually dropped it in to the booth. Strolling away, he did not even turn to view the destruction as the grenade went off with a resounding _crump_.

"Real men don't look at explosions, huh LT?" Macleod's driver asked with a curious smile.

"I've always wanted t' do tha'," Macleod replied with a roguish grin, "I feel like a goddamned movie star."

"Shame you don't look like one then, sir." The gunner said, straight faced.

"Too true, Gunny, too true," Macleod responded, shaking his head in mock bitterness, "classy, feminine lasses like yeself have never been interested in rough bastards like me. Let me show you a night on the town, though, and you'll be gushing t' ya book club girls all week."

"I wouldn't get your hopes up, sir. I'm an expensive date, probably out of your price range."

"It's funny ye say that, Paddy, I hear the same ain't exactly true of ya sister. Somethin' about three men, one barrack..."

"Jesus, Terry, you gossipy bastard. Does the word 'confidential' not mean shite to you?" The gunner gaped at the Warthog's driver.

"Sorry, Sarge," the driver winced, "The LT needed something to cheer him up after New Harmony..."

"You tosser," Gunny Hannigan laughed, "that's the last time I get you extra time on the range!"

"Alright, lads, settle down," Macleod interjected, patience worn, "I've got a flight of Pelicans tha' need clearance orders when this tower goes down and a route to the Plaza t' confirm. Get everyone ready to move out again, Gunny."

"Aye, sir." Hannigan jumped down from the gunner position and set off to round the rest of the marines up.

"Coburn, you ready?" Macleod asked into his mic.

"All set, sir." The marine with the explosives replied. "Just waiting on getting to a safe distance."

It took Macleod less than a minute to check that his second vehicle team had likewise managed to disable the defences around the identical tower to the north, give the deserted square one last visual sweep and finally issue the order to move out. With a number of shouted yelps and cries of 'oo-rah', the marine forces mounted up and sped off across the streets, dust churned up by the heavy tires mingling with the suspended clouds that had filtered through the streets since its abandonment and subsequent bombardment.

With several empty blocks between them and the tower, Macleod gave Private Coburn the order to detonate the charges. At the same time, the Warthog equipped with the missile launcher opened fire on the cannon just visible over the rooftops, its sheer destructive force a multiplier for the explosives rigged on the support legs, and an added guarantee that the structure would be utterly ruined. Though jaded by his years of combat experience, Macleod could not deny that the explosion was spectacular, glaring yellow and orange fire turning rapidly to blue as the innards of the plasma weapons ruptured. The main gun pitched upwards for the briefest of moments, blown clean off the support structure as its reactor detonated, before plummeting back down beneath the rooftops amid a plume of cascading dust and smoke.

"Beautiful." Macleod muttered to himself, smiling.

Without wasting time to watch the dust settle, the marines were back on the move, the roaring of jet engines growing louder behind them.

x-X-x

**New Milan airspace**

**14:52pm**

Captain Craig Sandy watched from the cockpit of the Pelican dropship as the flight of Hornets tore past, accelerating towards the distant Eastern Plaza. That meant it was nearly time. Clapping the pilot on the shoulder, Sandy turned and stepped into the troop bay behind the cockpit. Sat along the sides of the bay were the troops that comprised his squad, armed to the teeth and ready to dig in as soon as they hit hard ground.

Reaching up to one of the weapon racks, Sandy hoisted his assault rifle and ran through one last check of its operations before making his way to the rear of the Pelican's drop bay. He scanned the empty streets, taking in as much detail as the speed of the dropship's flight would allow, peering intently through the dust for any sign of movement, human or otherwise. The Pelican shot over a road intersection whose geometry Sandy recognised from his briefing, and accordingly the aircraft came to an abrupt midair stall and began to descend. Muscles tensing, Sandy felt the adrenaline begin to flow as the Pelican finally stopped. Sandy was the first one to jump out of the rear of the aircraft, followed swiftly by his squad. The Marines immediately moved into defensive positions, rifles raised and eyes scanning for any sign their landing zone had been compromised.

In the relative safety of the Marine's semi-circular defensive perimeter, the last two squad members were free to grab the heavy equipment, each of them burdened with satchel charges, rocket launchers and grenades, both grunting with the exertion.

"We're clear," Sandy called into his radio, and immediately the Pelican rose elegantly back into the sky. "That building," Sandy barked, gesturing, "get inside, secure it and get the heavy weapons set up." With a few words of acknowledgement, the squad moved off in a continuous frog leap motion, half stationary and covering while the other half moved. Ultimately, the precaution proved unnecessary; the streets were deserted. The building Sandy had designated was a squat, white building three stories high, with a flat rooftop and a staircase leading up to it. The small lip of the roof did not provide sufficient cover for Sandy to be truly comfortable, but the view it offered of the street corner and beyond was worth the sacrifice in protection, as was its elevation.

It took only a few minutes for the trained marines to set up a defensive position on the rooftop, the squad's marksman watching with eagle eyes for any alien movement, while the rest kept their weapons close to hand and ensured the anti-vehicle rocket launchers were ready to fire at a moment's notice.

From their nest, they watched as a pair of Covenant dropships rose from behind a building off in the distance, their pronged appearance menacing even from over a mile away.

"Let's hope they're not coming for us." One of the marines muttered.

"Probably just a late reaction to the destruction of the AA towers." Sandy replied, his tone reassuring. "Willis, get the comm gear over here." With a nod of acknowledgement, the private loaded with the protected communications equipment shuffled over, his back to Sandy. Keying in the general frequency of his company, the captain hailed the troops under his command.

"All units, this is Captain Sandy. Check in, please." There was a brief pause, as the respective squad leaders got themselves to a radio.

"Second squad is dug in and ready, sir. We've spotted Covvie aerial activity to the north, but no hostile engagement yet."

"Third team is still Oscar Mike, sir, but we've located a good overwatch position. Small hostile squad at the LZ, but they've been dispatched. No other enemy sightings."

"Fourth squad's still getting the machine gun nest set up, but we'll be combat ready in the next two or three minutes."

"Good," Sandy replied, inwardly relieved that the first stage of their operation had gone so flawlessly, "I want regular radio contact every ten minutes. We are weapons free at this point. You see any Covenant, you go loud with whatever you need to." Sandy clicked the radio back into place and shifted his weight to watch over the street below once more.

"You think the black hats can bag him, sir?" Platoon Sergeant Beni Shultz asked.

"I sure as hell hope so, Sarge, or this is going to be one mother bitch of a pull out."

x-X-x

**Alpha Base, New Milan Outskirts**

**10:18am**

Colonel Butler paused a moment as he passed the vehicle staging area, studying the postures of the marines at work. For the most part, they were calm, absorbed in the rigours of engine maintenance, or cleaning mounted weapons, but the officers who monitored them stood stiffly, some pacing with a slow deliberation that seemed to Butler an attempt to drive their tension into the asphalt surface.

He had not yet given them the final briefing for today's operation, but it had been in steady planning for days. Scuttlebutt had reached all corners of the regiment, and the rumours had pinned a thorough sense of responsibility on the officers. Co-ordination was to be key, and co-ordination could only be achieved if all the cogs in the great machine were running smoothly. One overlooked punctured tire in a vehicle column, one jammed munitions launcher, one falsely wired detonator and the whole operation could come crashing down.

Most of the soldiers still did not know the nature of their objective, indeed Butler himself was not even sure if the asset was present at all. The marines were set to deploy almost at a moment's notice, but unless the man Butler was about to meet had brought with him the correct information, the mission would grind to a halt. All of this tension, preparation and anxiety would have been for nothing.

Continuing onwards, Colonel Butler withdrew a pair of sunglasses from a pocket in his combat trousers, shielding his eyes against the sudden glare of Minerva's sun as he stepped onto the open walkway that lead to the command headquarters. The Covenant fleet had been abuzz for the last few days; that much had been confirmed again and again by reconnaissance data. Ships had been observed coming and going far more regularly than the largely static screen they had deployed during the first week of the occupation. Small corvette-class ships few in increasingly tight formations across Minerva's sky, and dropships had ferried a seemingly unending stream of infantry into New Milan and surrounding countryside.

The analysts from the Office of Naval Intelligence that had been assigned to the ships of the task group had been unanimous in agreement: the Covenant were preparing for an arrival. Of something or someone had been a point of contention. Until yesterday.

Butler stepped into the relative cool of the headquarters, and made his way to the office he had set up. Wordlessly, he started his coffee machine and took a seat behind his desk.

"I'm going to be blunt," he said pointedly to the man sat opposite him, the man who had been sat there since Butler had received his summons, "is this mission a go, or isn't it?"

"Oh it's a go." The blonde haired man said confidently. "It's all but confirmed. Tier One."

"Shit." Butler breathed, shaking his head. _Could it be, really? No other commander had ever hand opportunity like this._ _Back to the realities, the specifics_ he thought. "What do you mean, 'all but'?" His tone firm once more.

"Take a look at these." Blondie pulled a series of large, greyscale printed images from a folder and threw them onto the desk. Butler scrutinised them, experienced eyes ignoring the blurriness of some, and the vast quantity of unimportant space in others. He saw the massive, blunt, hook-nosed shape of a Covenant Assault Carrier in the first image. The same carrier that had arrived to replace the battlecruiser speculated to be the screening fleet's flagship only yesterday. It was flanked by a cluster of smaller ships, all flying unnecessarily close to their command vessel. Not just unnecessarily close for a blockade, but needlessly close even for protective detail. They were an honour guard.

"It deployed one Phantom." Blondie's face split in an exasperated smile. "One. In the early hours of this morning. We piggybacked most of these off old geo-imaging sats; sats the Covvie's thought were inactive. Even managed to pick up feed from the targeting camera of a wrecked orbital platform. We were pretty chuffed with that, it was quite a salvage op." He explained. Butler flicked through the next two images, showing a small blurry shape amid a cluster of blobs the colonel recognised as Seraph fighters.

"That's quite an escort." Butler muttered.

"It only got bigger," Blondie replied, hoisting up an ankle to rest on the opposite knee, "As soon as it entered atmo, it was joined by a flight of Banshees and two Spirits."

Butler turned to another image that looked like it had been taken from a cartographer satellite. The detail was exquisite.

"You notice what colours those dropships are flying?" Butler studied the image, trying to focus on the two tuning fork shaped vessels that formed only part of a composite of purple against the dry green of New Milan's outlying countryside. Specifically, he noted the adornments that covered the bizarrely shaped transports: webbed looking orange fins and wings covered the two prongs.

"That's an Honour Guard detachment." Blondie said with glee. "We haven't had any direct imagery, but if that doesn't confirm it, I don't know what would." Butler let out a low whistle. He turned to the final image, a distant shot apparently taken from a hand held reconnaissance camera. It depicted the Phantom that had been at the centre of the colossal deployment as it descended into the ruins of the Eastern Plaza; the former hub of the central government for an entire region of space had once again gained monumental importance.

"I see what you mean." Butler said softly, screwing up his face in thought. "But I can't order a mission based on this." He added after a moment, tiredness and frustration making themselves heard. "This could easily be a false flag, an easy ambush."

"Of course it could," Blondie replied, a little too dismissively for Butler's taste, "but consider this: the Covenant have never performed a deployment like this in front of humans before. Sure, this might not be what it looks like, but all the signs are there. The Covenant have no way of knowing we would now what an asset deployment on this scale would look like. Consider also, the risk-benefit ratio. For both of us." He added emphatically. "If this is for real, think what we have to gain, compared to what we lose if it is a trap. An asset of this scale for a handful of marines? I know it sounds terrible but from the point of view of humanity as a whole..." Blondie trailed off under a hard stare from Butler. Nonetheless, the colonel was forced to admit the intelligence officer had a point, and nodded for him to continue. "And the Covvies? What do they gain in exchange for a massive deployment like this, if it is a trap? Again, a handful of marines. We both know that if that was all they wanted, this planet would already be glass."

"I hear you, I really do." Butler admitted. "But I need confirmation."

"We've got drones being loaded up for an overfly as we speak. We'll get you that confirmation before the launch time. From an intelligence point of view, the mission's a go. It's just up to you to give the final word, Colonel."

Butler mumbled his way through the rest of the formalities, and dismissed the officer. There was no shaking this responsibility, Butler knew, but for all the dangers a mission like this was fraught with, he had known right from the start that this had to be done. No matter the cost. He, one man, had the chance to give the orders that could easily put an end to this war once and for all. This was the ultimate asset. He was here, it seemed so certain. What humanity could do with a captured Prophet, Butler could scarcely begin to guess at. This was their chance. A quick strike to secure one of the Covenant's religious leaders, one of the instigators of their genocide, one of the all too few individuals that could turn back the onslaught.

In one afternoon, Butler's men could prove themselves the saviours of the entire human race. The Covenant had made the error they had been hoping for at last. Of course the mission was a go. No matter the cost, they had to succeed.

"Assemble the unit leaders." He ordered the HQ staff as he stepped, wild-eyed, from his office. "Tell them I want the mission plan finalised in two hours. We've got a Prophet to bag."


End file.
